Joe M. Allbaugh, the outspoken former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), says the U.S. government needs to do a better job of securing the U.S.-Mexico border against illegal immigration and to step up its efforts to control what’s being shipped daily into the United States.

“The southern border is porous, and we need to shut it down if we hope to get ahead of the problems that illegal immigration brings,” Mr. Allbaugh said on Thursday during a luncheon meeting with editors at The Washington Times. “Less than 5 percent of the 125,000 containers coming into this country each day are ever inspected.”

Mr. Allbaugh, who managed President George W. Bush’s winning 2000 presidential campaign, then served as FEMA director and now has his own lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., noted the importance of a secure border in pointing out that the FBI has identified as many as 185 terrorists cells as being active in the United States.